The municipal decision to establish a moratorium on tourist apartments, giving prior notice that it was going to be adopted, is a joke or a well-calculated decision to achieve the exact opposite of what they claim to want to achieve. Four years ago I wrote an article in this same newspaper in which I affirmed the hindrance of the largely accepted tourism policy, an opinion that provoked angry criticism from locals and strangers, including an editorial from the Valencian director of the most listened to channel in Spain. I still think that Valencia is not a tourist city, even if it is a city that insists on receiving tourists, but this is too subtle a difference to address here and now.
If in that article I stated that our country has tourism beyond our possibilities and had to stop, now I affirm that the measures that postpone making decisions to decrease tourist activity, such as the moratorium on license authorizations for tourist apartments, are insufficient. . Furthermore, this moratorium, since its approval was communicated privately in advance – I suspect long before it was published in the press – the first consequence has been a significant increase in applications, so now the city council has the problem of what to do with those that came in. on record before being approved, thus nullifying part of the effect that the moratorium seeks.
In another order of things, when it was discussed whether or not the implementation of the tourist tax had a negative impact on that sector, the left affirmed that this decision had no such impact and that it only allowed resources to be available to recover the negative impacts that tourism causes. For its part, the right claimed that it would have a deterrent effect. Faced with this discussion, the reality is that the tourist tax does not represent a brake on tourism but it is also true that its collection does not represent a significant increase in income that serves to correct the negative impacts on the environment, the economy and social life. So, neither one thing nor the other. Putting one euro or three or five per overnight stay has zero impact as a brake on the arrival of tourists to our city, first because that amount is so small compared to the total paid that it is practically not taken into account and second because the companies absorb otherwise that quantity with which in many cases they maintain the prices. Regarding the second issue – having new resources – the amount collected is so small in terms relative to the budget of public administrations that it is not even remotely enough to correct the negative effects that tourism has on the territory.
Let’s take Barcelona for example. According to data from the city council, the amount collected by the tax between 2019-2023 was €54 million. This year between the progressive readjustment of the municipal surcharge and the Generalitat rate there will be 72 million (20 for the Generalitat, 52 for the city council). Those monies are welcome, but it is clear that, although for ordinary mortals this amount is enormous, for public administrations it is a trifle. The municipal budget of Barcelona is €3,807 million and that of the Generalitat is €51,640 million. The Barcelona Tourism Consortium spends €45 million on different actions aimed at the tourism sector, including promotion. What remains cannot possibly pay for the correction of the negative effects on cleanliness, urban destruction -normal and abnormal-, pollution in all its forms, etc. Not to mention the perverse effects on housing, standards of living, cost of living, loss of traditional commerce, etc. Even assuming that this amount is doubled by VAT as a result of the increase in tourist consumption, the balance is still negative. Only the creation of jobs and the increase in general economic activity is what gives a positive balance, but of course that is the trap, because since tourism is so important for employment and for our economy, we must sustain it and invest to that it does not decline suddenly, in such a way that one enters a vicious circle of endless self-justification. Another Faustian pact.
If we transfer this reality to Valencia the figures are even worse. Barcelona was visited by 12 million people with an average stay of 3 nights, Valencia in 2023 received 2,319,546 tourists who stayed 2.5 nights per person. The recaudation roughly What it would generate for Valencia, applying the same rates as in Catalonia, would be one fifth, barely 11 million and although the press reports vary between 5 and 22 million, I don’t know where they come from. Only the spending on promoting Valencia as a tourist destination far exceeds that amount, adding what is allocated by the city council, the provincial council and the Generalitat – by the way, dispersed in countless items under very suggestive names – with which we achieve that the income from the tax pay a part of the expenses caused by the promotion of Valencia to continue receiving tourists without allocating anything to correct the negative effects that this increase in arrivals produces. A nonsense.
Taking into account everything we are experiencing with tourist overcrowding in Valencia, I now believe that decisions must be made to withdraw resources, public and private, destined for tourism to allocate them to other activities, mainly to protect the environment and promote other niches. of employment. Policies to reduce the current state of tourist activity in our city must definitely be activated, extending the moratorium for more years. In addition, and among other measures, direct and indirect aid to tourist activities should be eliminated, eliminating the different promotional campaigns for our city as a tourist destination, establishing limitations on visits to certain areas, reducing licenses in restaurant services such as terraces. and rethinking many of the planned investments in transportation infrastructure that help promote the arrival of tourists. With that, perhaps we will be able to convert some basement apartments into neighborhood businesses again, reduce the pressure on housing, lower the average rental price, reduce noise and make the city habitable again for those of us who try to live in it. We will talk about what happens to employment when these measures are adopted at another time.
